People lift for a variety of reasons whether it’s to increase mass, strength, power or some other factor. And the way they go about achieving these desired outcomes is the source of debate across internet forums. Everything from ideal training splits, sets, reps, and even rest intervals are sources of debate. Despite these differences in details, one underlying principle unites these lifters, an understanding that programming matters. Poorly designed programming can leave you in a suboptimal state, which will impact your ability to reach your goals, or worse leave you susceptible to injury.

One concept that lifters should take into account when assessing their program is that they’re addressing the following fundamental movement patterns:

HingeSquatPushPullLungeCarry

While you don’t have to incorporate each movement pattern into all of your workouts, it would be wise to assess whether you’re performing a sufficient amount of each movement at some point over the course of your training program. Failure to address each movement pattern can lead to muscle imbalances and a higher susceptibility to injury down the line. In addition to that, because the muscles operate as groups, if you have a weakness somewhere in your “chain”, your overall strength goals will suffer.

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Lifters may overlook one of the fundamental movement patterns for a variety of reasons. Often times lifters choose to abandon an entire movement because they experience discomfort performing a specific exercise. Exercises make up movement patterns, but they’re not the stand alone movement pattern. If a certain exercise gives you trouble for whatever reason rather than abandoning exercises from that movement find ways to incorporate other user friendly exercises from that movement pattern.

Another common reason is tunnel vision on improving a specific lift when designing a program. While specificity and overload are necessities for training progress, you don’t want to totally neglect the other movements.

Lastly, some lifters do make an effort to address each of these movements in their programs but it might not be in a balanced fashion. We have a tendency to gravitate towards movements we excel at rather than ones we have more difficulty with. In addition to this, we have to consider what movements/postures we utilize throughout the course of our day not just in a gym. This is why it’s common for many trainers as an example to recommend 2:1 pull to push ratios to provide some balance from slouching in front of a computer for 8 hours. Some ways you could go about evaluating your program is comparing strength ratios across movements, total reps performed of each movement or an honest assessment of movement quality for each movement.

Here are some strategies to ensure you address any of the fundamental movement patterns that you might be underutilizing in your program.

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Paige Hathaway

PLEASE READ: Life is your greatest teacher. Annoyance teaches you patience. Abandonment teaches you how to stand on your own two feet. Anger teaches you forgiveness and compassion. Anything that has power over you teaches you how to get power back. Hate teaches you unconditional love. Fear teaches you courage and anything you can’t control teaches you how to let go...

I have learned many things in life from allowing my experiences to shape me. I firmly believe that life tests our strengths and equip us to endure what our future has in store. Heartache, hardship and physical turmoil are all just tests. Life won’t allow us to go through things that it knows we can’t handle. The question is WILL YOU BE STRONG ENOUGH to fight the battle? Will you let the storms of life pass and allow yourself to become a better person because of it... You can let life to be your greatest teacher or you can let life defeat you because of it. ✨🐛🦋 #MondayMotivation

Your right on point, besides persevering through a catastrophic accident I have learned how to forgive more and inspire others that need help.

10 - 1 day 2 hours ago

PLEASE READ: Hmmm Without contradicting you, because I respect you. Maybe we could look at this another way. Life teachers you nothing, life is just time. Your actions over time mould your character. We are obviously here to learn. Abandonment teaches you where to place your love. Anger teaches you how to function with control. Nothing has power over you unless you submit. Hate is an internal justice mechanism, it is perfectly justified to hate injustice or cruelty etc. Fear is a survival mechanism, it is up to us to discern the amount of danger associated with the fear. Ultimately, we can control nothing but ourselves and our actions. We are what we do. There is heaps more...But see ya next time. ♥️

3 - 22 hours 38 minutes ago

Yo gorgeous, how was Cleveland? Did it treat you right. All you had to do is text me and I would have been there. I guess there is always next time... Rawr

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